How not to be a victim: at work or on the streets

Professor Kevin Dutton ... ‘muggers nearly always zone in on exactly the same people – those who not really aware, not looking around, not paying attention. Photo: Paul Williams

Fiona Smith

‘Vulnerability radar’
Path of least resistance

Some of us appear to have been born with a target securely fixed between our shoulderblades.

That is what I believed, growing up during the 1970s and 1980s, learning to keep my eyes down and face frozen to attract as little attention as possible.

Invisibility didn’t work though. Throughout my teens, I fought off the father of some boys I baby sat, the father of one of my friends, the boss in my after-school job and various other “surprise attacks” by males closer to my own age.

Most alarmingly, for some months in my early twenties, I also became subject to the frightening attentions of a young man with schizophrenia obsessed with a character I played on stage.

The high-scoring ‘psychopathic’ undergraduates in the first study might have been good at identifying weakness. But the clinical psychopaths went one better ...

But, finally, an incident while back packing in Prague in my late twenties seemed to knock off that damned target once and for all.

I was followed into an apartment building by a man who put a knife to my throat. He had waited for the lift but I – feeling fit and strong after months of travel – had decided to take the stairs.

He ran up behind me and, believing I was about to die, I screamed blue murder until doors above us opened and people started to shout and he ran quietly back down the stairs and out into the street.

Thinking about it later, I became convinced that he was a psychopath. He showed no sign of nervousness, came equipped with a knife so sharp it cut my neck just from the pressure, and he made no attempt to rob – although he had plenty of opportunity to take my bag.

Possibly, if I had entered that lift, I may never have walked out of it again. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

However, the interesting thing is, that once I had regained my confidence and forced myself to continue on with my travels, I stopped being a victim. And I have never again been subjected to an attack in the following two decades.

‘Vulnerability radar’

What changed?

Well, according to research psychologist, professor Kevin Dutton, it could have been that I stopped looking like a target.

In his book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Dutton says psychopaths have a highly developed “vulnerability radar” that allows them to pick out those who would be the easiest victims.

He describes an experiment by psychologist Angela Brooke and her colleagues at Brock University in Canada in which undergraduate students who rated highly on the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale were better at identifying women who had been victimised in the past than observers with low scores.

“Moreover, when Brook repeated the procedure with clinically diagnosed psychopaths from a maximum security prison, she found something else.

“The high-scoring ‘psychopathic’ undergraduates in the first study might have been good at identifying weakness. But the clinical psychopaths went one better.

“They explicitly stated that it was because of the way people walked. They .... knew precisely what they were looking for,” writes Dutton.

In an interview with BRW, he explains: “There’s some sort of body language”.

Dutton suggests that when victimisation stops, it could be that the individual has changed the way they appear.

In my case, although always a bit of a daydreamer, the last event in Prague heightened my awareness of what was happening around me. So much so that, years later, I punched a pickpocket in the chest and found myself yelling at him like a madwoman before I had even had time to register that there was a problem.

His touch of my bag was so imperceptible that I wasn’t even conscious of it yet I had reacted on instinct.

“I am sure there was a subtle difference in the way you carried yourself,” Dutton says.

He says that, as part of a safety awareness campaign, a video of ordinary people going about their shopping was shown to a group of criminals and muggers, who generally agreed on the ones they would choose to attack.

“They nearly all zoned in on exactly the same people – who were not really aware, not looking around, not paying attention. Also, people who were not walking in a very effective manner.”

His advice: “Be aware. Be switched on”.

This also holds true at work, where the psychopath may be more likely to cost you your job rather than your life.

Path of least resistance

“Don’t act a victim. If you have suspicions someone is like that [a psychopath], stand your ground. They take the path of least resistance and are not going to bother with someone who is going to give them trouble.

“Always try to look through the smoke screen they put up. Check their credentials. Above all, don’t cover for them in any way. They are risk takers who can be deceitful and manipulative.”

Dutton says 1 to 2 per cent of the population are psychopaths. More, if you look at the upper ranks of the business community.

“Money, power, status and control – each the preserve of the typical company director, and each a sought-after commodity in and of itself – together constitute an irresistible draw for the business-oriented psychopath, as he or she ventures even further up the rungs of the corporate ladder,” he says.